Bill Poulos

Bill Poulos Reviews His Birthday Wish

Bill Poulos reviews his seventh birthday wish that set the tone for a lifetime of helping others.

The story Bill’s mom shares opens with Bill and about 12 of his friends sitting around their dinning room table, all ready to slice into the birthday cake. However, Mrs. Poulos decided to try something a little different that year.

Instead of the usual one wish for the birthday boy, she let all the other kids who attended the birthday party each make a wish of their own. The children wished for the typical things you’d expect, like a new bike or a puppy. When Mrs. Poulos finally got around the table to the birthday boy, he made a very unique birthday wish.

As seven-year-old Billy blew out his birthday candles, he wished for world peace. His mom remembers that, at that moment, all the other kids gathered around Bill and hugged him tightly.

William Poulos has now grown up to become a financial educator, investor, published author, automotive executive (now retired), and philanthropist.

Charitable Causes Bill Supports

As a philanthropist, Bill Poulos gets involved with charities and efforts he believes in. There are two existing youth programs that Bill particularly cares about.

The Downtown Boxing Gym Youth Program

The first is the Downtown Boxing Gym Youth Program. After school, the youth of Detroit https://detroitmi.gov/ gather at the Downtown Boxing Gym to receive tutoring, mentoring, academic support, college and career readiness, along with boxing and athletics instruction. The program has maintained a 100% high school graduation rate since 2007.

Little Dresses for Africa

The second program Bill supports is Little Dresses for Africa. Little Dresses for Africa is a Christian charity that utilizes volunteers to create vibrant dresses made from pillowcases. Founded in 2008 by Rachel O’Neill, the charity sends the sewn dresses to little girls in Africa. She believes, and Bill agrees, that the dresses offer little girls more than just a piece of clothing; the dresses offer little girls hope. The dress program also offers workers an introductory method to get to know the African families. The humanitarians work with households to teach them about important things such as sanitation, clean water, and good health. For her work with Little Dresses for Africa, Bill presented Rachel with the Profits Run Starfish Award. She was the awards very first winner, in December 2018.

Bill Poulos’ Early Life

Bill Poulos grew up in Detroit, Michigan. Being only a second generation American, he has strong connections with his Greek culture. He grew up involved in his community through the Boy Scouts. Bill was both a Cub Scout and a Boy Scout. [Visit Bill Poulos’ Official Google site for more early life photos] Poulos went on to become the youngest Eagle Scout the Detroit area council had seen. Bill was on the school swim team and always excelled in school, getting good grades and graduating close to the top of his high school class (only one or two people graduated ahead of him).

The Poulos Family

In 1969, Bill married his high school sweetheart, Karen. Together had three children (all boys!)—Greg, Robert, and Mike. They lived in Northville, Michigan most of the time, a nice suburb in Detroit, MI.

He and Karen have now been married for over 48 years. The boys are now all grownup and have families of their own.

The Poulos family had multiple reasons (besides growing up there) for settling down in Detroit. It made sense for them. Bill shares his thoughts on how to choose where to build your life.

Education, Travel, and Career with General Motors

After high school, Bill attended GMI (General Motors Institute) in Flint, Michigan, which was a co-op program that allowed him to work on the floor of the Cadillac Motor Car Division as well. He graduated from GMI in 1970 with a degree in engineering. For college, he believed a program that allowed him hands-on training as well as classroom time would benefit his career. For those who are not sure what education or career path they should follow, Bill offers words of advice on choosing something you’d enjoy that is also economically in demand.

After graduating, Bill was promoted to a management position with Cadillac. He progressively moved his way from the factory floor of Cadillac up through positions in Manufacturing, Production Control, Materials management, Purchasing and Logistics. While working at Cadillac, Bill simultaneously took night school classes at the University of Michigan. There he earned his Masters of Business Administration, majoring in finance. [Learn more about Poulos on Crunchbase]

In 1978, at 34 years of age, Bill was promoted to the Purchasing and Logistics Director of Cadillac. Two years later, Bill was promoted to the corporate purchasing headquarters as Director of Worldwide Fabricated Components for General Motors . From there, Bill moved on to Chevrolet as the Purchasing Director of Chevrolet. Throughout his career with GM, Bill traveled the world. He took countless trips to Germany, the UK, and many other European countries, as well as trips to Japan, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela. He and his family actually lived in Brazil for three years while he worked for GM. There he learned Portuguese. Bill took on the position of Executive Director of Production Control for General Motors when the Poulos family moved back stateside. At age 54, he retired from the company following his last assignment as Director of the Vehicle Development Center.

Politics

Although Bill Poulos deems himself a fiscal conservative he believes the left and right political model is flawed. He thinks both parties are generally ineffective. Bill also believes it is important to educate yourself on all points of view, so you can make educated decisions on what you believe in and who you support. He warns though, educate yourself with trusted news sources. [Follow Bill Poulos on Medium to learn more about his views.]

Trading as a Hobby and Profits Run

After retirement from GM, Bill’s working life was not yet over. He was a finance guy (you can read his general financial advice for everyone here) and the markets fascinated him. Bill had been trading stocks and options since the 70s. Trading was just a much-loved hobby in the beginning, but as he learned, it became more.

In 2001, Bill co-founded the company Profits Run https://www.profitsrun.com/bill-poulos/ with his son Greg. Profits Run, Inc. is an educational financial corporation. The company provides many different types of financial training programs and products for investors. The training products are presented as live seminars, advisory services, home learning programs, and online study courses. Both Bill and Profits Run focus on maintaining investment strategies with low risk levels. Profits Run’s main focus is to give people a safe and simple way to invest—always managing risk first and foremost. Bill invests in cryptocurrencies, stocks, options, commodities, ETFs, FOREX, and more. For more insight, here are Bill Poulos reviews from a few Profits Run students.

Still More Helping to Be Done

More than 60 years have passed since seven-year-old Bill’s birthday wish.

As William Poulos’s team, we’re not quite yet in a position to end all wars, but that’s the direction we’re heading towards.

By supporting the Downtown Boxing Gym Youth Program (so they can take one more inner city kid and give him mentorship and boxing lessons to ensure he earns his high school diploma), or by helping Little Dresses for Africa (so they can give one more little girl in Africa hope with a colorful dress made out of a pillowcase and clean drinking water), we are taking the tiny steps we can towards helping this seven-year-old boy get his birthday wish.

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